With Afghanistan and Iraq already lost, the Wall Street bankers were all desperately looking for other ways to control our world, when suddenly and very conveniently, the Sumatran Trench exploded. Trick or Treat? Joe Vialls investigates

In Andernach about 50,000 prisoners of all ages were held in an open field surrounded by barbed wire. The men I guarded had no shelter and no blankets; many had no coats. They slept in the mud, wet and cold, with inadequate slit trenches for excrement.

Using legal injunctions, Dov Zakheim’s lawyers forced this website to remove an article we posted with the same title; which tells us he may have something to hide. Seems like others also think so as this video indicates. Watch it while you still can

I get a lot of comments from people and a lot of emails too. Most people are quite satisfied with what goes on here at Smoking Mirrors. Then there are those who are not. Well… we wouldn’t want to satisfy everyone would we? Some people have told me that I have to love everyone so… maybe I should buy some velvet chaps for the comfort of those who would like to take advantage of that love. Some have told me that my implying people should take their country back ‘by any means necessary’ is too severe and wouldn’t work anyway.

There are people who think I am anti-Christian or anti-Jew. No one seems to think I’m anti-Muslim. My spiritual roots are in Hinduism but… so are the spiritual roots of every other religion… like it or not. What it is is that I don’t care for fundamentalism of ‘any’ stripe and that includes Muslim as well as any who fit that description. I don’t like ‘by the book’, ‘by the numbers’ ‘sex is bad’ bullshit “if you’re not saved you’re going to Hell” garbage and I don’t like Sharia either. I don’t like Zionism which is racism and neo-Nazi tactics. If you happen to be a member of any of these groups and in fundie mode then we don’t have anything to say to each other.

People who tell me I should love everyone certainly do not do so themselves and also don’t know what love is to begin with. The cloying, new age, treacle of kissing everything and making it better are easy words to say and hard words to live by. I do my best to love and care for others but you don’t take an asp to your breast or pet a scorpion. On the day that you are truly one with all, there won’t be any questions to ask or problems to solve anyway but… this is here and now. If everyone who was pointing out what is going on were to stop, then the people who do rely on them would be reduced to getting their information only from the people who are abusing them.

It happens every now and then. A handful of wealthy psychopaths decide that they don’t have enough and have managed to gain control of the press and the police, the governments and the courts and, of course, the means of production. Then they squeeze the world in their hands to drain everything of value from the lives of those they consider to be less than human and by virtue of this, they show that they are the least human of all bi-pedal travelers.

They had a revolution in France because of this and they’ve had them other places too. Heads rolled, literally. Violence and bloodshed do not make me hard. I don’t like that kind of thing, at home or abroad but… it happens. Lately it has been happening exclusively to a certain class of people and not at all to those who deserve it the most.

Gandhi did a marvel with non-violent protest but it was certainly not non-violent. Martin Luther King took a page from his book and that wasn’t non-violent either. There’s no shame in walking away from the world in times of darkness and many wiser souls do. Some of us are meant to be engaged in one way or another. Or maybe it is all a random pinball game and some of us just choose to engage. Some of us screw things up worse than they were before as has been seen in the efforts of certain social and moral reformers.

I’ve had over 250 postings here. It’s a no brainer that they haven’t all been cutting edge or more useful than not. I wish I knew what to tell you, once and for all, but I do not. Another day comes and another week follows. There’s always something more to say, even if there was nothing to say to begin with. You can say it’s all pointless and you can say it has a point. You can say there is a God and you can say there is no God. Whatever you are, you are the sum total of what you believe to be true and that is what motivates you. Regardless of what we believe or do not believe, the world goes on. We have our parts to play and for the moment this is mine.

The psychopaths who are engineering all of the nasty shit that you hear about and, in some cases, experience, are getting ready for one of their periodic slam dunks on the heads of the human race. Governors are getting white powder in the mail. In Mumbai they softened up your credibility and let you know the boogeyman was around. They’ve been taking away the homes of millions of people. They thrashed the financial system while looting the same. Now they are going to throw the world into turmoil, close borders and restrict travel. They are going to tighten up on the food and other staples and necessities in order to keep the population focused on survival rather than the loss of their freedom and security.

I know there are many people out there who can see what is happening and who have not sold out their humanity for a mess of potage. I know many of you have tried to do your best and will continue to. One thing history teaches us… regardless of the appalling body count and bloodshed… is that sooner or later it passes. Life on Earth may be a cakewalk for some but it is a struggle for the majority. No system seems to be a solution because, sooner or later, the gangsters take over. This is why you hear that, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Tyrants and despots have done their share to make portions of the world unlivable but bankers and corporations have got them beat in all directions by the incessant longevity of their evil ways. For these men and women, it is a game and you are mere ciphers on a balance sheet. Theft, usury and the destruction of the competition are applauded. They congratulate each other on their efforts and they laugh about the carnage. They do.

Many times here, I have suggested that if the people would only step away from the machine and refuse to contribute; refuse to work, refuse to buy, refuse to watch their televisions and gather in silent protest in their communities across the world that the engines would grind to a halt. I have always felt that this was the greatest power the people have. It is the complicity of the people in their own oppression that allows for it to continue.

Unfortunately, the majority of people are not very bright. It may not be only the lack of intelligence and a capacity for objective reasoning that is the problem. People are also inclined to obey. For some reason they believe that those in authority have their best interests at heart, regardless of how many times they are shown otherwise. Regardless of how often they see criminal behavior in high places they somehow think that someone, somewhere, is honest and knows what they are doing.

I’ve looked at this from a lot of perspectives and all I can come up with is that people have to suffer. It’s a mysterious component in life. They hunger for their own destruction and their lives bear this out.

Here at Smoking Mirrors, we like beating our head against the wall and pointing the same thing out, over and over. It’s what we do, so we must enjoy it. We don’t always get it right and we hope that, at those times, we are at least entertaining. It’s hard to know what to say to someone who won’t listen. It’s hard to know what to do in an enormous ocean of fish, swimming in large schools into the nets.

You stand on one side of the river and you cry and you stand on the other side of the river and you laugh and neither of these affects anything. I believe that people wake up here and there as time goes by. I believe there’s some grand summing up somewhere up or down the road but I couldn’t tell you what it is. Take what is useful and freely given and leave the rest. Given that it looks like bad weather up ahead, I suppose it’s only fair that winter is coming too.